The most comprehensive study of who’s using what in the U.S. came out on Wednesday. Here are six noteworthy stats from the federal government’s annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health of 70,000 Americans.

The methamphetamine epidemic is waning. The number of meth users in 2012 fell to 440,000, down from 731,000 in 2006. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, which conducted the survey, attributed the drop to states restricting the sale of key ingredients, like pseudoephedrine, which is found in cold medicines such as Sudafed.

But heroin use is exploding. Between 2007 and 2012, the number of Americans shooting up nearly doubled, from 373,000 to 669,000. According to Mark Kleiman, professor of public policy at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, that estimate may be low. Many heroin users are incarcerated, homeless, or not in a place where surveys can find them.

With cities and states cracking down on “pill mills”—illegal sources for Oxycontin and other prescription opiates—addicts are looking to get their fix elsewhere. “The prescription opioids are an easy path,” Kleiman says. “Then once people are strung out, they’ll do lots of stuff that they wouldn’t have done before.”

Pot is only getting more popular. Marijuana has long been the most commonly used drug in America, but its fan base is reaching new highs. In 2012, 18.9 million people used marijuana–7.3% of the population–up from 14.5 million in 2007. The number of daily users, now 7.6 million Americans, is growing as well.

Some of that rise likely resulted from growing acceptance of the drug—20 states and Washington, D.C. allow medical use, and Colorado and Washington State recently legalized recreational toking. “It’s clear that people are more willing to use legal than illegal drugs,” says Keith Humphreys, a psychologist and behavioral sciences professor at Stanford who served as a policy advisor at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The spirit of the ‘60s lives on. Here’s one statistic that will probably surprise people but shouldn’t: drug use among older people is way up. Last year, 7.2% of adults age 50 to 64 got high, up from 3.4 percent a decade ago. Among those aged 55 to 59, the drug use rate more than tripled, from 1.9% to 6.6%.

But those increases are mostly attributable to Baby Boomers getting older. “This cohort, particularly those born after 1950, had much higher rates of illicit drug use as teenagers and young adults than older cohorts,” the survey explains. “This generational shift in drug use is still evident in the most recent data.”

One of your neighbors is probably a binge drinker. Last year, 52.1% of Americans, 135.5 million people, reported drinking alcohol. Nearly one quarter, about 60 million people, were binge drinkers, which the study classified as having five or more drinks in the same occasion on at least one day during the month before being surveyed.

Teens don’t think smoking is cool anymore. 70 million Americans used tobacco last year, but fewer teens are lighting up. Over the last decade, tobacco use among teenagers (12 to 17-year-olds) dropped by nearly half, from 15.2% to 8.6%.

They’re still experimenting with alcohol though. Of the 4.1 million people who reported having their first drink in 2012, more than 80 percent were under the age of 21. You can’t win them all.

Why is a spike in heroin use surprising? Doctors prescribe narcotics to millions yearly, narcotics are addictive, people become addicts. I use the term 'narcotics' to refer to opiate derived substances...oxycodone, morphine, heroin, methadone, etc.

1st, Cannabis is NOT the most used drug in America. Caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, and many other drugs are used far more. To be clear, cannabis is the most used ILLICIT drug in America, but it's also one of the safest -- safer that alcohol and tobacco by far, and even safer than caffeine.

2nd, if your source is the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, then you're not getting all the facts. They have a vested interest in keeping the war against [some] drugs going, and produce lots of propaganda to support it.

3rd, as cannabis use increases, the use of other more harmful drugs like alcohol, tobacco, and prescription harmaceutical products decreases.

"Binge drinkers" were classified as having five or more
drinks in the same occasion on at least one day during the month before
being surveyed......So, if you drank five beers at your 30th birthday party last month, you can be labeled a binge drinker. I call that BS.

The heroin epidemic has destroyed so many lives it's sickening. It's way worse than any statistics but it's not the type of thing people like to admit to or for their family to even accept as reality. I wonder if the number of opiates prescribed by Doctors has a direct correlation. I'd bet yes.

It's probably not really a big increase in use of MJ. People are just more willing to admit it. And Boomers are retiring and emptying the nest and are able to indulge without having to worry about work drug tests and family finding out. For the first time ever, I answered yes on one of those doctor forms.

The assertion in the article that 'Marijuana has long been the most commonly used drug in America' is FALSE and is NOT supported by the survey.

By far the most commonly used (recreational) drug in America is ALCOHOL.

If you want to say most common used ILLICIT drug, then SAY most common used illicit drug.

We know you aren't talking about prescribed medicine, or over the counter analgesics - that you are referring to "recreational" drug can be legitimately assumed - that is what the survey is reporting on. But both alcohol and marijuana are recreational drugs and the survey reports on both. The only difference is that one is legal (and kills hundreds/thousands per year) and one is mostly illegal (and has never killed anyone in the history of the planet).

It is time to stop simplistically naming marijuana as the most common recreational drug when it isn't - by anyone's definition and by any measure.

If the DEA would concentrate their efforts on heroin, meth and prescription drug abuse rather than spending millions on marijuana eradication and raiding dispensaries, no one would suffer but drug police, prison owners, dealers and cartels.

The Absence of Marijuana from the Human Diet due to Prohibition has brought about the Many Horrific Disease & illnesses that We Face Today. It was well Known as the Most Effective Worldwide Cure all Before made illegal. It was made illegal to make Rich the people who run America Today & as a means of Genocide.

I feel like such an old fuddy-duddy clutching my bottle of booze, and nothing else. What happened to those carefree days of youth when I'd gulp down my ecstacy and Gatorade and dance to exhaustion to the grinding thump of house music with dozens of total strangers?

Being a Boomer, I can say, right! But many of us who don't smoke have found alternatives ways of consuming our cannabis. As more people retire and relax ,I predict more usage. Also it's being increasingly used for medical reasons.

@mikeo2297 Probably so, and yes, the stigma does hinder the collection of accurate statistics, not to mention a reality-based approach to the problem. For the record, if I were told, "You have no choice in the matter: one of your loved ones is going to become addicted to either pure heroin or alcohol. You can work with them to help them kick the habit, but that's where we start," I would choose the former in a heartbeat. Consider that heroin's and alcohol's addictiveness are strikingly similar with respect to intoxication, reinforcement, tolerance, and withdrawal, but only alcohol in excess causes damage most of our major organs. Prohibition complicates matters, as it always does, in heroin's case by resulting in wildly varying purity levels (which encourages overdose) and needle sharing (which encourages the spread of Hep C).

@underweed You and I both. A cynical reader might conclude that the "baby shroomers" bit was pure, deceptive click-bait—hey, it got ME here—especially since the SAMHSA report itself mentions "psilocybin" and "mushrooms" exactly once, then proceeds to group them under "hallucinogens" (and goes on to indicate that all hallucinogens combined represent a minuscule percentage of youth drug use).

@cleft5@KennethWilliams I think you misunderstood the article. It considers 5 drinks in one occasion on one day to be binge drinking. It then asks whether the person did that during the previous month. Three drinks at one event is considered enough to put a 160-lb person over the legal limit for driving. Wouldn't your consider five to be a lot?

@whymsicals29@jglugla@mail.com hm..not sure arguing is what they are here for...they are here to have thier opinions heard...but not to have a discourse...to argue means defend ones point and be open to acceptance of another view if its presented properly...mostly this is just trolling...

@ffoulkes@harborfish@faturismEvery
substance that has any effect on the body is processed by it, by
definition. He meant processing in the sense of how it's prepared in
the marketplace for consumption, not how it's consumed.